BACKGROUND/AIMS
This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity among primary school students.
MATERIAL and METHODS
A total of 10781 students (5622 boys, 5159 girls) aged 6–15 years participated in the study. Descriptive statistics of the data were expressed as mean, standard deviation, maximum, minimum, and range values. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was applied and Q-Q plot analysis was performed visually to determine if the data was normally distributed. Since the data were not normally distributed, the LMS (Lambda for the skew, Mu for the median, and Sigma for the generalized coefficient of variation) method was used to calculate the percentiles.
RESULTS
The prevalence of overweight was 7.4% in both sexes, while the prevalence of obesity was 5.8% for boys and 5.3% for girls. The age group with the highest prevalence of overweight was 13 years (9.6%) in boys and 15 years (13.5%) in girls, while that with the highest prevalence of obesity was found to be 8 and 10 years (6.6%) in boys and 8 years (6.5%) in girls.
CONCLUSION
It is remarkable that obesity is high in both sexes, especially in young children. Preventive interventions to stop this trend are recommended to focus on the early stages of childhood.
Keywords: Childhood obesity, students, overweight, prevalence